


Love is a strong feeling

by Dramaticdragon



Category: Monster Prom (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Mutual Pining, They/Them Oz, damien having actual emotions besides anger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-04 22:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15157034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dramaticdragon/pseuds/Dramaticdragon
Summary: Damien feels all of his emotions very strongly, and this includes love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> based on the CANON line:  
> "And sure, love is already HARDCORE just because the feelings are SO STRONG and that's BADASS, but that will be double as strong and badass if it turns out that [player name] is as hardcore as i think they are."  
> Damien also canonically talks about having his feelings getting hurt, going to therapy, and respecting his partners boundaries from step one. so uhhhh Damien is a 10/10 great boy

            To an outsider, Damien seemed to have one emotion: Anger. He was always angry and never happy and only had friends because they were allies in causing trouble, but he likely didn’t feel any real affection to him. But as it is, an outsider’s perspective is often wrong.

            To one who truly knows Damien, they would argue this idea. He was filled much more with ‘passion’ than he was with ‘anger’. Although most of the time that passion was simply being passionate about being angry, but it was different in principle. An outsider might think Damien wasn’t affectionate, but in truth it was quite wrong. Damien thought the stronger the emotion, the better (and yes, this emotion was often anger, too); thus, his emotions towards his friends was also strong.

            Yes, when Damien felt a feeling, he felt it strong. When he was angry, he was enraged; when he was sad, he was mortified; and when he loved, boy did he love. That’s right folks, angry, ‘mean ol Damien’ himself was quite the fan of all types of emotions, when felt strongly enough.  

            To Damien’s closest friends, they knew very well how loyal he was to his friends. The occasional arson or cursing out didn’t deter them. After you get past Damien’s outer ‘Angry 24/7’ layer, you get pretty used to his casual anger and learn to take a ‘hey idiot get out of my way’ as a ‘hi how are you’, roughly translated.

 

\---

 

            To an outsider, Oz seemed nothing if not silent. Unlike most monsters at this school, they was actually seen regularly at class. It’s sad how that’s actually a noticeable trait of theirs, given that this _is_ an actual school, but regardless. Oz has three close friends, and even when seen among them, they seemed quiet. The blue franken-girl, Vicky, did most of the talking for their friend group. Brian was also quiet, but Oz held themself in a quiet way as well.

            To one who truly knows Oz, they would argue this too. While, yes, Oz generally didn’t talk too much, it wasn’t out of insensitivity or rudeness. Oz was just more of a listener than a talker. But, despite appearances, this didn’t make Oz any less of a monster. Yes, they used their personal silence as a weapon. Being a monster of the shadows, Oz could actually seep into the floors and become one with someone’s shadow and follow them for however long they had a shadow- and if you didn’t just stand in the middle of a field at noon, they generally all had shadows. They could jump out and scare them, learn things about others if they was interested in them, or even as blackmail when they owed Vera a favor (a place you don’t want to be, mind you). Or simply as a mode of travel, when they were too tired to walk. They were a calculating, quiet little monster, but a loved and loving one too. Their four-man friend group was most certainly a found family at this school, and all four of them felt this way.

            At first, this group of four was a bit unpopular. Not in a bad way, just simply not well known. Just like that one kid you had two seats behind you in elementary math that you kind of recognized his face, but not enough to name, you just kind of knew him. But eventually their fun-loving and somewhat charismatic group won their way surprisingly into the most popular group in school! Yes, before they knew it, the four of them were among the ranks of a literal prince and princess, a sports master, a four-hundred-some year-old hipster vampire, a party maniac, and a suspected drug-lord kingpin millionare-to-be.

            And as it always does, with a group of ten murderous teenagers, sparks were soon to fly.

            Or had they already flown?

 

            ---

 

            “Damien, I’m saying this as your friend, but you need to stop” Vera sighed, side-eyeing Damien as they stood by the unisex bathroom counter. Vera was adjusting her eyeliner, while Damien was on his phone.

            “Stop what?” Damien asked.

            “That.” Vera answered, pointing with her eyeliner stick to Damien’s phone, where he had a selfie he and Oz took in front of a burning fire that they were completely unrelated to.

            “Hey, a guy can’t appreciate a sweet victory with a friend!?” Damien snapped back.

            Vera just gave him that _look_.

            “Yeah, alright. So are the two of you just going to keep setting ‘friend fires’, or are you going to ask them out?” Vera asked, although her voice sounded uninterested.

            “Hey, all fires are rad,” Damien defended quickly, “And if they don’t like me back? I’ll be totally depressed and probably depress-kill, like, twenty people, which is way less cool than just killing them.”

            “Well, find out if they like you back some other way.” Vera suggested, finishing her eyes.

            “And how would I do that, idiot?” Damien growled.

            “Look, I’m no free love advisor. You can go to Scott if you want to talk about feelings for free. Any emotional baggage costs twenty monster-dollars per sentence.” She snapped back, shoving her makeup into her bag and strutting out.

            Damien cursed at her as she left, set one toilet on fire, and huffed angrily.

            As obnoxious as she was, she had a point. Maybe there _was_ a way to find out if Damien’s not-so-tiny crush was reciprocated without the risk of depress-kills?

            That would definitely save his murder record, if he could.

 

            ---

 


	2. Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oz goes to class and eats lunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so as i'm writing this, im still playing through all the routes and finding more things about the characters, so if any of this is out of character its bc gosh theres too many routes

Oz tried to focus in class. Really, they did. It’s not like Mrs. The Loch Ness Monster’s lectures weren’t any good, it’s just that their mind was very much pre-occupied. With prom only two weeks away, it was the talk of the whole school. Even the half of their friend group, who seemed disinterested at first, are talking about it too. Yes, even Liam seemed interested.

            Oz wondered if they should go. Probably, since it was a pretty big event and all. Plus, there would totally be food and spiked drinks, so that was a plus. But if they went, who would they go with? If all else failed, they could probably ask on of their friends to go just as friends, but they knew a couple of their friends would be asking others to go too. They thought about asking one of their friends in a _romantic_ way. Maybe someone like Amira or Damien? They were both had a fire-y personality that lead Oz to believe they had a type. Amira probably saw them only as a friend (which was in no way a bad thing, since she was pretty baller as a friend), which left only Damien. But it was unlikely he would go with Oz in a romantic way. Damien, as hype as he was for things like that, Oz guessed he saw prom as a way to fight every student in one room, not as a romantic party. Oh well, it’s not like Oz was heartbroken.

            Oz stared on to their empty notebook, thinking more on it. The more they thought about it, the more they realized they totally wouldn’t mind dating Damien. He was cool, strong-willed, and totally gave Oz a confidence boost whenever he called him ‘baller as hell’, which was thankfully often.  Plus, he was totally not hard to look at, if Oz was more superficial. Being a literal shadow made you forget people had ‘features’ that others found specifically more attractive than others. Shadows don’t have cheekbones, man.

            The bell rang, snapping Oz out of their daze. They realized they spent literally the entire class daydreaming about prom and Damien. Whoops. -2 Smarts.

            But thankfully, Oz was already an A student, so a couple smart points won’t make a difference. They shrugged it off and walked their way to the cafeteria. They were looking forward to seeing some of their friends they didn’t share any classes with, like Polly and Scott. Well, maybe Polly _did_ share a class with them, but she never actually went.

            Since their class was pretty far from the cafeteria, they were the last to sit down at their table-of-friends.

            “’Bout time!” Vicky grinned, scooting her tray to the side to give them some more space.

            “It’s not my fault my class is on the opposite side of the globe,” Oz sighed quietly, plopping down their food. Thankfully, they didn’t really have taste buds, and just absorbed food as nourishment is the space on their face that a mouth would be; which meant the nasty food meant no difference to them.

            “And how has your day been, Oz?” Vera asked, resting her chin on her manicured hand.

            “Fine,” Oz said, “Pretty easy so far.”

            “Polly, what about this one?” Miranda asked Polly, pointing to something on her phone, ignoring the greetings the others gave Oz.

            “Hmmm… ‘Princefinder dot com’, huh?” Polly read the description, “’Find local princes and other royalty near you and have serfs do all the rest of the romantic work, and unite your kingdoms’. I don’t know girl, what happened to good ol’ Tinder…”

            “Last time I used that, someone messaged me directly without sending gold in advance, which is a horrible offense!”

            “Just find a prince the old fashioned way!” Scott grinned, “Wait until prom and they’ll tell you which of our classmates is actually a prince!”

            “It doesn’t work quite like that-” Liam sighed, but was interrupted anyway.

            “Oh, prom!” Polly and Miranda grinned together.

            “If the prom royalty is _really_ proper royalty, I will surely unite my underwater kingdom and this, slightly less valuable, school kingdom!”

            “Unless someone rigs the prom votes by totally not floating into the voting booths and messing it up!” Polly laughed, clapping her hands.

            “Polly no.” Liam said.

            “Polly, _yes_ ,” She stared back.

            “Ugh, prom, prom, prom!” Vera groaned, “That’s all everyone is talking about. And since all the hype ends as soon as prom ends, there’s no long-term way to profit off it!”

            “I think it’ll be fun.” Vicky said, ignoring the profiting factor.

            “Fun-schmun, I’m not here to just stand around and look pretty. I stand around and look pretty and _profit_.”

            “You should ask some business guy to prom, or something.” Oz said, “I don’t know, or what about some lonely kid who will pay you to date him? Actually… that’s kind of already just regular prostitution… Just with prom.”

            Polly gasped:

            “ _Prom_ stitution!!!”

            “I will never become a promstitute. But the business date sounds like a better idea.” Vera said, mentally planning that out.

            “Speaking of prom dates,” Amira transitioned, “Who here already has a date?”

            Amira loved to start whole group conversations, especially fun ones like this.

            “Well, I have like five guys who agreed to donate alcohol for the punch-spiking, so they’re all my dates in my heart!” Polly laughed.

            “I don’t have a date…” Scott sighed, his doggy ears flopping downwards.

            “That’s okay, Scott!” Vicky said, trying to cheer him up, “Me neither!”

            “Yeah, I don’t either.” Oz said, wanting to help poor sad Scott, too.

            Oz noticed Vera cast a quick, snapping glance at Damien, but didn’t question it.

            The rest of them continued talking about prom and dates and so on, and Oz took this opportunity to finish their food. The next class they had was P.E., which they shared with Damien and Brian.

            They decided all this drama about prom dates could wait until after they totally cream their opponents in dodgeball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the nice comments yall left on chapter 1!!! it was so encouraging!!! so i hope you enjoyed this which ended up more exposition than i planned


	3. Dodgeball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oz and Damien are teamed up for Dodgeball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! Thanks again for all the sweet comments!!! If any of you notice if i ever accidentally used Oz's pronous as he/him (which is how i used to refer to them), let me know so i can correct it! Thank you!

Damien was a man of simple pleasures. Simple arson, murder, vengeance… Nothing too big. But sometimes, even he got spoiled. And if his crush happened to go to the same changing room as him, a man got happy! Because maybe he’d get a sweet look at their back, or legs, or stomach! But nooooo, he just _had_ to crush on a shadow monster who shortcutted changing clothes by laying out their gym clothes on the floor, turning into a puddle, which took off their original clothes, then reformed within their gym clothes. Which was significantly cooler than changing clothes the regular way, but still.

            Today, as it always is, was dodgeball. Damien was on a team with Oz, and Brian was on the other team. Damien knew Brian was better than Oz at dodgeball, but he’d pick Oz any day.

            Most people might take this chance to watch their crushes, but Damien was a man of competition, and wasn’t about to lose because he was making googly eyes at his cute shadow friend.

            The battle raged on, and Brian’s team started to take the lead. Unfortunately, Brian was just as competitive as Damien, and he had more dodgeball skills to back it up. For all of Damien’s fighting skills, it was a bit difficult to transfer that talent into dodgeball and not murder classmates in the process (which was against the rules, and would make their team lose anyway).

            One of the balls rolled near Oz, who ran over and bent over to pick it up. Which meant their focus was on the ground and not on the enemies. One of the members of the opposing team, a cyclops girl, took advantage of this and absolutely _launched_ a ball at Oz, hitting them square in the face.

            “Ow!” Oz squeeled, falling on their butt and grasping their face in their palms.

            “Oz, you’re out!” Coach yelled from the sides.

            Oz nodded, still holding part of their face and walking sadly to the ‘out’ bench.

            Damien watched this for a moment, and quickly went into a nearly blind, revenge fueled rage.

            He grabbed the two nearest dodgeballs, set them on eternal fire, and pelted them directly at the cyclops girl. She jumped out of the way of the first one, but the second hit her right in the gut, which also set her shirt on fire.

            “You’re out!” Coach called, “Also, no fires, Damien!”

            Damien ignored Coach, breathing out angry smoke from his nose.

            After a few more minutes, the battle finally ended, and the students started filing into the changing rooms once more.

            Oz was even quieter than normal, and it looked almost like they had shrunken their form to appear even smaller.

            Even though they were the fastest at changing clothes, they still sat on one of the benches on their phone for a few minutes, instead of immediately walking out.

            Once the majority of the students were out, Damien walked over and sat next to Oz.

            “You alright, dude?” He asked, pointing to Oz’s hand that still rested over their cheek.

            Oz nodded, slowly removing their hand and showing Damien a slightly red cheek. Somehow, dodgeballs were capable of giving regular injuries to shadows.

            Damien felt a pang of guilt shoot through him.

            “Oh, man, that looks nasty.” He said, not thinking that sentence through.

            “And it’s not even a cool one.” Oz grumbled, “It’s a stupid, kiddy ‘boo boo’.”

            “W-Well, I mean you took a shot for your team, that’s kinda cool.” Damien defended.

            “Dude, I got hit in the face because I was picking up a ball.” Oz said, deadpanned staring at Damien. They were not pleased.

            Damien nodded, shutting his mouth out of fear for making it worse.

            Oz sighed, no longer angry-staring at Damien.

            “Thanks, though. At least you think I’m cool.” Oz said, looking up at Damien gratefully.

            Damien’s guilt was quickly shoved over by raw affection.

            “Yeah, bro,” Damien mumbled, “You’re super cool.”

            Oz continued to look at Damien, clearly smiling even with a distinct lack of mouth.

            Damien’s insides panicked, and he just acted on first instinct. Which was to pat Oz’s back really hard, in a ‘bro-like’ manner.

            “Let’s just go set some stuff on fire or something!” Damien said loudly, trying to ignore Oz’s tiny little ‘ow dude’, and lowkey holding his hand on Oz’s back way longer than normal.

            Instead of setting something on fire, Oz agreed to just walk with Oz until they reached their next class.

            Damien tried not to stare sadly at Oz’s still somewhat pink cheek. Damien knew very well that the injury was more a hit to the pride than to the face, but it still made him sad to see Oz physically _and_ emotionally hurt.

            “Hey, Damien,” Oz said, turning to face Damien in front of the door to their class.

            Damien tried to seem chill and not that he was staring.

            “Thanks for being cool.” Oz said. Damien wondered if their cheeks were pink from the dodgeball hit, or if there might be another reason.

            “It’s pretty easy when you’re in cool company,” Damien said.

            _Ohhhh that was bad_ , Damien thought, mentally slapping himself senseless.

            But Oz clearly didn’t think it was that bad, since they laughed a little, covering where their mouth would be shyly.

            Damien sure was glad that blush was hard to see on his red face.

            “Hey, uh, you’re good at math stuff, right?” Damien asked, really not wanted to have to walk away from Oz.

            “I’m okay, why?” Oz asked.

            “Well, I’ve been skipping class for the past couple weeks, and apparently there’s this _test_ in a couple days?” Damien explained, scratching his neck.

            “If you want, I can help in the library after school,” Oz said, knowing what Damien was silently asking.

            “Thanks, man!” Damien grinned proudly, patting Oz on their shoulder (much more gently, this time).

            Suddenly, the bell rang, and Oz rushed into the classroom, sending Damien a quick wave as the door closed.

            Man, he had it _bad_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also i just got Zoe's route completed and uh,,,,, my wife?

**Author's Note:**

> this was kinda written on a whim let me know if i should actually continue lol


End file.
